I love it when I find research coming straight from the halls of the very hospital where I received my breast cancer treatment. It reminds me that I'm in good hands, that University of Florida researchers are on the cusp of breaking through the mysteries of cancer, that I may one day be the lucky recipient of cutting-edge discoveries, like this:

University of Florida researchers report in a paper to be published in the August issue of Stem Cells that bone marrow stem cells attracted to the site of cancerous growths often take on the appearance of the malignant cells surrounding them. While these cells look like cancer, though, they may not act like cancer. They have the same skin, says lead study author Dr. Chris Cogle. But the question is: do they have the same guts?

"Our results indicate these cells act as developmental mimics; they come in and look like the surrounding neoplastic tissue, but they aren't actually the seed of cancer," said Cogle who is affiliated with the cancer center I've called home for more than two years.

Prostate cancer has been on the rise for the last thirty years. A small but growing group of scientists are beginning to prove with research what environmentalists and activists in the cancer community have been saying for some time -- the link between environmental toxins that mimic estrogens in the body and reproductive cancer is not coincidental. University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Cincinnati researchers have just completed a study that shows a direct link between the chemical, bisphenol A or BPA -- that leaks from plastic products we use in daily life -- to the development of prostate cancer in later life.

According to the researchers, these findings could have major implications for human disease, and could, at least in part, explain why the prostate cancer rate has surged. Used for about half a century, BPA is a key component in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastic and is one of the world's most widely used industrial chemicals. Unlike carcinogenic chemicals that can cause profound damage to DNA and trigger cancer, BPA seems to cause subtle changes that are passed from one generation to the next generation. It all starts in the womb. To read more, go here.